My Neighbor
SAY not, I love the Lord, unless you find
Within you, welling up by day and night,
A love, strong, full, and deep, for humankind—
Unless you find it always a delight
To show the weary one a resting-place—
To show the doubting one Faith’s shining way—
To show the erring one the door of Grace—
To show the sorrowing one where they may lay
Their broken hearts,—the heaviness—the care—
The grief, the agony too sharp to bear.
When each man is the neighbor whom we love,
According to the gracious measure of His word,
Then may we lift our eyes to heaven above,
And say with rapture sweet: I love the Lord.
Hollyhocks
SAY, did you ever go to a place
Where nobody lived you cared about,
An’ jest go wanderin’ up an’ down,
Into all the great big stores, an’ out.
An’ meetin’ sich heaps, an’ heaps of folks,
That pass you by with never a nod,
Till you got to feelin’ through an’ through
Jest right down lonesome, an, ’most outlawed.
An’ you tell yourself if someone said
“Will you have this place?” You’d say, No thanks!
I wouldn’t live here for all the world,
Give me the fields, an’ the brooks an’ banks.
Why the stuff that grows in your lots here
Can’t touch one side of our country stuff,
You have things tended to, right up fine,
But nature is sweet, though maybe rough.